East and Southern Africa is a climate hotspot, with more than US$45 billion in agricultural production at risk from higher temperatures, shorter growing seasons and more extreme droughts and floods. Maize, a staple crop covering up to 75% of cropland in parts of the region, is particularly vulnerable and is projected to face yield declines of 15%, among other climate impacts if no adaptation measures are taken. Many of the affected areas already have serious levels of hunger and malnutrition, with the highest burden experienced by women and youth from marginalized and vulnerable communities. If these systems are sustainably diversified, they can contribute to stabilizing regional and global agrifood systems.
The next decade will be critical for strengthening food, land and water systems in East and Southern Africa. The agribusiness ecosystem for both regions has been identified as a critical engine for agricultural and economic development, climate change adaptation and gender and youth empowerment. Investment in innovation, capabilities and supportive environments will be essential for driving sustainable growth.
Objective
This Initiative aims to support climate-resilient agriculture and livelihoods in 12 countries in East and Southern Africa by helping millions of smallholders intensify, diversify and reduce the risks in maize-based farming through improved extension services, small and medium enterprise development, supporting governance frameworks and increased investment with a gender and social inclusion lens.
Activities
This objective will be achieved through:
Diversifying and sustainably intensifying production by assessing needs and options for the introduction of crops, livestock, mechanization and irrigation, applying innovations in value chains and building capacity while scaling to larger farming communities.
Reducing risk and digitalizing value chains by co-designing and delivering âInnovation Packageâ bundles of digital agro-advisory systems and research management products â including mobile apps, TV programs and social media â to build resilience and improve productivity.
Supporting and accelerating value chain business enablers in maize mixed systems by using CGIARâs expertise and partner network to unlock access to funding, investment and tailored technical assistance.
Promoting the governing and enabling of multifunctional landscapes for sustainable diversification and intensification with a focus on strengthening the evidence base for decision-makers.
Empowering and engaging women and youth in agribusiness ecosystems by mapping challenges and opportunities to address gender and social inequality and applying inclusive and coordinated interventions for transformative change.
Scaling innovations and coordinating CGIAR and partner activities in the region through a scaling hub that uses the âscaling readinessâ approach to inform, activate and bring to scale innovations that respond to regional or country demand.
Wheat at a CIMMYT field trial. (Photo: H. Hernandez Lira/CIMMYT)
As the Russia-Ukraine war continues to degrade global food security, a new analysis lays out concrete actions that governments and investors must do now to mitigate near-term food security risks and stabilize wheat supplies, while transitioning toward long-term resilience.
âThe Russia-Ukraine war will impact global food security over months â if not years,â said CIMMYT Global Wheat Program Director and lead author Alison Bentley. âWe now need to move beyond defining the problem to implementing practical actions to ensure stable supply, safeguard the livelihoods of millions of vulnerable people and bring resilience to our global agrifood system.â
The war in Ukraine and trade sanctions against Russia are triggering a level of volatility that could easily overwhelm existing mitigation mechanisms. More than 2.5 billion people worldwide consume wheat-based foods; those in lower- to middle-income countries dependent on imports from Russia and Ukraine are particularly affected. Some of the worldâs poorest countries, such as Bangladesh, Sudan and Yemen, rely heavily on Russian and Ukrainian wheat. Given the highly interconnected nature of contemporary agrifood systems, few will remain unaffected by this new global food shock.
Mitigate the immediate crisis
The first priority, according to the authors, is to mitigate the immediate crisis by boosting wheat production in existing high- and low-productivity areas, ensuring grain access and blending wheat flour with other low-cost cereals. Bundled agronomic and breeding improvements and sustainable farming practices can reduce dependence on imported grain and fertilizer, while coordinated, multilateral policies can help conserve grain stocks for human consumption and avert trade restrictions.
Increase the resilience of wheat supply
In the medium term, the authors emphasized the need to increase the local, regional, and global resilience of the wheat supply. This can be done by expanding production within agro-ecological boundaries, supporting national wheat self-sufficiency and providing technical assistance, to increase the production of high-yielding disease-resistant wheat and to mainstream capacity for pest and disease monitoring.
Transition to system-level resilience
Finally, to reach crucially needed resilience in the worldâs agrifood system, long-term measures must be taken that encompass agroecosystem diversity, address gender disparities in agriculture and rural communities and sustain increased investment in a holistic, agrifood transition.
âThe current global food crisis underscores and compounds existing inequalities in our global food system,â Bentley said. âA transition to agrifood system resilience requires us to urgently balance global food supply needs with the multi-layered challenges of climate change, achieving gender equity, nutritional sufficiency and livelihood security.â
The International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is an international organization focused on non-profit agricultural research and training that empowers farmers through science and innovation to nourish the world in the midst of a climate crisis.
Applying high-quality science and strong partnerships, CIMMYT works to achieve a world with healthier and more prosperous people, free from global food crises and with more resilient agrifood systems. CIMMYTâs research brings enhanced productivity and better profits to farmers, mitigates the effects of the climate crisis, and reduces the environmental impact of agriculture.
CIMMYT is a member of CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food secure future dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources.
Written by Bea Ciordia on . Posted in Uncategorized.
The Transforming Smallholder Food Systems in the Eastern Gangetic Plains (Rupantar) project aims to define the processes and practices (technical options, scaling interventions, policy settings and implementation) that can be applied to achieve sustainable, efficient, diversified food systems at scale in the Eastern Gangetic Plains of Bangladesh, India and Nepal.
Home to 450 million people, this region has the world’s highest concentration of rural poverty and strong dependence on agriculture for food and livelihoods. Productivity remains low and diversification is limited due to poorly developed markets, sparse agricultural knowledge and service networks, inadequate development of available water resources, and low adoption of improved, sustainable production practices.
Rupantar builds on existing work and partnership networks to link research outputs and development goals through the demonstration of inclusive diversification pathways, definition of processes for scaling to the millions of smallholder farmers in the region, and generating a better understanding of the policies that support diversification.
Research objectives
Defining the processes and practices (technical options, scaling interventions, policy settings and implementation) that can be applied to achieve sustainable, efficient, diversified food systems at scale in the Eastern Gangetic Plains.
Understanding the context for diversification in the Eastern Gangetic Plains.
Defining and implementing diversification pathways using collaborative and inclusive approaches.
Deepening understanding of the trade-offs and synergies associated with diversification pathways.
Engaging and communicating with change-makers to ensure outputs are used and integrated into independent programs.
Project outcomes
Demonstrated pathways for equitable and sustainable diversified food systems in the EGP.
Improved evidence-based policies for planning and development programs that promote diversification.
Self-sustaining diversification pathways that are owned by local partners and promoted without ongoing project support.
Participants of the kick-off meeting for the Ukama Ustawi Initiative stand for a group photo in Nairobi, Kenya. (Photo: Mwihaki Mundia/ILRI)
Partners of CGIARâs new regional integrated Initiative in eastern and southern Africa held a kick-off meeting in Nairobi on March 2â3, 2022. Eighty-five people participated, including national agricultural research extension programs, government representatives, private sector actors, funders and national and regional agricultural research and development organizations.
Entitled Ukama Ustawi, the Initiative aims to support climate-smart agriculture and livelihoods in 12 countries in eastern and southern Africa: Kenya, Zambia, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe (in Phase 1); Malawi, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda (in Phase 2); and Eswatini, Madagascar, Mozambique and South Africa (in Phase 3).
The Initiative aims to help millions of smallholders intensify, diversify and de-risk maize-mixed farming through improved extension services, institutional capacity strengthening, targeted farm management bundles, policy support, enterprise development and private investment.
Ukama Ustawi is a bilingual word derived from the Shona and Swahili languages. In Shona, Ukama refers to partnerships, and in Swahili, Ustawi means well-being and development. Together, they resemble the vision for the Initiative to achieve system-level development through innovative partnerships.
The meeting brought together partners to get to know each other, understand roles and responsibilities, identify priorities for 2022, and review the cross-cutting programmatic underpinnings of Ukama Ustawi â including gender and social inclusion, capacity strengthening and learning.
Baitsi Podisi, representing the Centre for Coordination of Agricultural Research and Development for Southern Africa (CCARDESA), said he is excited to be part of the Initiative: “CCARDESA, in its cooperation and coordination mandate, can learn a lot from CGIAR in restructuring to respond to the changing times.â Podisi supported the partnership with CGIAR in the Initiativeâs embedded approach to policy dialogue, working with partners such as CCARDESA, the Association for Strengthening Agricultural Research in Eastern and Central Africa (ASARECA) and the Food, Agriculture and Natural Resources Policy Analysis Network (FANRPAN).
Similarly, FANRPANâs Francis Hale emphasized the need not to re-invent the wheel but to work with partners who already have a convening power, to advance the policy agenda for diversification and sustainable intensification.
What were key issues discussed?
One of the features of Ukama Ustawi is the use of four interconnected platforms: a scaling hub, a policy hub, an accelerator program and a learning platform. These will provide spaces for exchange and learning with partners across all CGIAR Initiatives in the region. Partners conducted a series of âfishbowlâ interactions across work packages to review the planned activities and provide a clearer understanding of deliverables, identify synergies, potential overlaps, common partners and countries, and set timelines.
The Initiative will work with innovative multimedia platforms to change knowledge, attitudes and practices of millions of farmers in eastern and southern Africa. One key partner in this area is the Shamba Shape Up TV show and the iShamba digital platform. Sophie Rottman, Producer of Shamba Shape Up, said she is looking forward to the work with Initiative partners, that will help expand the show to Uganda and Zambia.
Jean Claude Rubyogo, representing the Pan-Africa Bean Research Alliance (PABRA) said: âIt is time we move away from CGIAR-initiated to country-initiated development activities. This is what Ukama Ustawi is all aboutâ.
Martin Kropff, Global Director of Resilient Agrifood Systems at CGIAR, explained CGIARâs regional integrated initiatives are designed to respond to national/regional demands. âThe initiatives will start by working with partners to assess the food and nutritional challenges in the region, and tackle them by bringing in innovative solutions.â
The event was concluded by agreeing on the implementation of the inception phase of the Ukama Ustawi Initiative, and follow-on discussions to finalize key activities in 2022.
Groundwater is essential for Indian agriculture and rural livelihoods, but groundwater levels are declining. Simply providing canal irrigation as a substitute irrigation source will likely not be enough to maintain current production levels.
Nigel Poole, Professor of International Development at SOAS, University of London, writes on The Conversation about the role of cereals in fighting malnutrition. Poole was a Visiting Fellow at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico for a year.
Water pumped from a deep irrigation well, called a tube well, at a wheat farm in west India’s Gujarat state. (Photo: Meha Jain)
India is the world’s second-largest producer of wheat and rice and is home to more than 600 million farmers. The country has achieved impressive food-production gains since the 1960s, due in part to an increased reliance on irrigation wells, which allowed Indian farmers to expand production into the mostly dry winter and summer seasons.
But those gains have come at a cost: The country that produces 10% of the world’s crops is now the world’s largest consumer of groundwater, and aquifers are rapidly becoming depleted across much of India. Indian government officials have suggested that switching from groundwater-depleting wells to irrigation canals, which divert surface water from lakes and rivers, is one way to overcome projected shortfalls.
The authors estimate that if Indian farmers lose all access to groundwater in overexploited regions, and if that irrigation water is not replaced with water from other sources, then winter cropped acreage could be reduced by up to 20% nationwide. However, that scenario seems highly unlikely and was included in the study only as an upper-bound estimate.
It seems more likely that any future groundwater shortfalls would be at least partially offset by increases in canal irrigation. But even if all Indian regions currently using depleted groundwater switch to canal irrigation, winter cropped acreage could still decline by 7% nationwide and by 24% in the most severely affected locations, according to the researchers.
Water alternatives needed
âOur results highlight the critical importance of groundwater for Indian agriculture and rural livelihoods, and we were able to show that simply providing canal irrigation as a substitute irrigation source will likely not be enough to maintain current production levels in the face of groundwater depletion,â said study lead author Meha Jain, an assistant professor at the University of Michiganâs School for Environment and Sustainability.
âWe need coordinated efforts to solve this water availability and food security issue, which should be supported by science-led policy decisions on what strategies and technology solutions to scale out to improve irrigation efficiency,â said co-author Balwinder Singh, a Cropping Systems Simulation Modeler at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The study analyzed high-resolution satellite imagery and village-level census data and focused on winter cropped acreage. While nearly all Indian farmers plant crops during the monsoon to take advantage of seasonal rains, winter agriculture is mainly reliant on groundwater irrigation and now accounts for 44% of the country’s annual cropped acreage for food grains.
“These findings suggest that other adaptation strategies, in addition to canal expansion, are needed to cope with ongoing groundwater losses,” Jain said.
The possibilities include switching from winter rice to less water-intensive cereals, increased adoption of sprinklers and drip irrigation to conserve water in the fields, and policies to increase the efficiency of irrigation canals.
While groundwater depletion is becoming a global threat to food security, and the extent of current and projected groundwater depletion are well documented, the potential impacts on food production remain poorly quantified. The study is the first to use high-resolution empirical data, including census data about the irrigation methods used in more than 500,000 Indian villages, to estimate the crop production losses that may occur when overexploited groundwater is lost.
“Understanding the complex relationship between food security and water availability is crucial as we prepare for future rainfall variability due to global climate change,” said co-author Gillian Galford of the University of Vermont.
The proliferation of deep (>30 meters) irrigation wells called tube wells since the 1960s has enabled Indian farmers to increase the number of seasons when crops are planted in a given year. This increase in “cropping intensity” is credited for much of the country’s food-production gains.
Maps showing state-by-state Indian winter cropped area loss estimates due to groundwater depletion in coming decades, with and without replacement by canals. Darker shades of pink and red indicate greater projected losses. The map on the left (A) shows projected winter cropped acreage losses if all critically depleted groundwater is lost, with no replacement. The map on the right (B) shows projected winter cropped acreage losses if groundwater irrigation is replaced with canals, using national-level regression coefficients. (Graph: Jain et al. in Science Advances 2021)
Big data for food security
The researchers used satellite data to measure Indian winter cropped area, a key determinant of cropping intensity. They then linked the satellite data to census information about the three main types of irrigation infrastructure in India: shallow “dug wells,” deeper tube wells and canals that divert surface water.
Linking the two datasets allowed them to determine the relative efficacy of each irrigation method. That, in turn, enabled them to estimate potential future acreage losses and the ability of canal expansion to fill the gap.
The study’s worst-case scenario found that winter cropped area could decrease by up to 20% nationwide and by 68% in the most severely affected regions, if farmers lose all access to groundwater and if that irrigation water is not replaced from another source. The expected losses would largely occur in northwest and central India, according to the study.
The researchers also found that increased distance from existing irrigation canals is strongly associated with decreased acreage planted with winter crops. In the future, a greater reliance on canals could increase inequities related to irrigation access, according to the authors.
“This suggests that while canals may be a viable form of irrigation for those who live near canals, they may lead to more unequal access to irrigation across villages compared to wells, with negative impacts for those who live farther from canals,” the authors wrote.
In addition, the lakes and rivers that feed irrigation canals rise and fall in response to rainfall variability, unlike deep groundwater wells. So, a greater reliance on canal irrigation in the future would result in increased sensitivity to year-to-year precipitation fluctuations, as well as any long-term trends due to human-caused climate change.
The authors of the Science Advances study, in addition to Jain and Galford, are Ram Fishman of Tel Aviv University; Pinki Mondal of the University of Delaware; Nishan Bhattarai of the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability; Shahid Naeem, Upmanu Lall and Ruth DeFries of Columbia University; and Balwinder Singh of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
The work was funded by a NASA New Investigator Award to Jain and two NASA Land Cover and Land Use Change grants, one awarded to R.S. DeFries and one to Jain.
Direct sowing of wheat seed into a recently-harvested rice field using the âHappy Seederâ implement, a cost-effective and eco-friendly alternative to burning rice straw, in northern India. (Photo: BISA/Love Kumar Singh)
Compared to conventional tillage practices, sowing wheat directly into just-harvested rice fields without burning or removing straw or other residues will not only reduce pollution in New Delhi and other parts of northern India, but will save over $130 per hectare in farmer expenses, lessen irrigation needs by as much as 25%, and allow early planting of wheat to avoid yield-reducing heat stress, according to a new study published in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability.
The practice requires use of a tractor-mounted implement that opens grooves in the soil, drops in wheat seed and fertilizer, and covers the seeded row, all in one pass. This contrasts with the typical method for planting wheat after rice, which involves first burning rice residues, followed by multiple tractor passes to plow, harrow, plank, and sow, according to Harminder S. Sidhu, principal research engineer at the Borlaug Institute for South Asia (BISA) and a co-author of the study.
âThere are already some 11,000 of these specialized no-till implements, known as the Happy Seeder, in operation across northern India,â said Sidhu, who with other researchers helped develop, test and refine the implement over 15 years. âIn addition to sowing, the Happy Seeder shreds and clears rice residues from the seeder path and deposits them back onto the seeded row as a protective mulch.â
Covering some 13.5 million hectares, the Indo-Gangetic Plain stretches across Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan and constitutes South Asiaâs breadbasket. In India, the northwestern state of Punjab alone produces nearly a third of the countryâs rice and wheat.
Some 2.5 million farmers in northern India practice rice-wheat cropping and most burn their rice straw â an estimated 23 million tons of it â after rice harvest, to clear fields for sowing wheat. Straw removal and burning degrades soil fertility and creates a noxious cloud that affects the livelihoods and health of millions in cities and villages downwind. Air pollution is the second leading contributor to disease in India, and studies attribute some 66,000 deaths yearly to breathing in airborne nano-particles produced by agricultural burning.
The central and state governments in northwestern India, as well as universities and think-tanks, have put forth strategies to curtail burning that include conservation tillage technologies such as use of the Happy Seeder. Subsidies for no-burn farming, as well as state directives and fines for straw burning, are in place and extension agencies are promoting no-burn alternatives.
A farmer in India uses a tractor fitted with a Happy Seeder. (Photo: Dakshinamurthy Vedachalam/CIMMYT)
As an aid for policy makers and development practitioners, the present study applied econometrics to compare conventional and zero-tillage in terms of yield, input levels and implications for rice residue burning. The study also compared use of the Happy Seeder versus a simple zero-tillage drill with no straw shredder. Participants included more than 1,000 farm households in 52 villages, encompassing 561 users of conventional tillage, 226 users of simple zero-tillage seeding implements, and 234 Happy Seeder users.
They found that only the Happy Seeder was able to sow wheat directly into large amounts of rice residues, with significant savings for farmers and equal or slightly better wheat yields, over conventional tillage. The Happy Seeder also saves time and water.
âGiven the benefits of sowing wheat using the Happy Seeder against the tremendous health and environmental costs of residue burning, the reduction or elimination of straw burning should be pushed forward immediately,â said P.P. Krishnapriya, research scientist at the Sanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, and a co-author of the article. âInvestments in social marketing and policies that foster the use of the Happy Seeders, including significant subsidies to purchase these machines, must be accompanied by stricter enforcement of the existing ban on residue burning.â
The study also found that the information sources most widely-available to farmers are currently geared towards conventional agricultural practices, but farmers who use the internet for agricultural information are more likely to be aware of the Happy Seeder.
âAwareness raising campaigns should use both conventional and novel channels,â said Priya Shyamsundar, lead economist at the Nature Conservancy (TNC) and co-author of the article. âAs with any innovation that differs signiïŹcantly from current practices, social and behavioral levers such as frontline demonstrations, good champions, and peer-to-peer networking and training are critical.â
In addition, rather than having most individual farmers own a Happy Seeder â a highly-specialized implement whose cost of $1,900 may be prohibitive for many â researchers are instead promoting the idea of farmers hiring direct-sowing services from larger farmers or other people able to purchase a Happy Seeder and make a business of operating it, explained Alwin Keil, a senior agricultural economist with the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and lead author of the new study.
âWe are extremely grateful to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Nature Conservancy, and the CGIAR Research Program on Wheat Agri-Food Systems (WHEAT), who supported our research,â said Keil.
At present, nearly half of the worldâs population is under some form of government restriction to curb the spread of COVID-19. In Bangladesh, in the wake of five deaths and 48 infections early in the year, the government imposed a nationwide lockdown between March 24 and May 30, 2020. Until April 17, 38 of the countryâs 64 districts were under complete lockdown.
âWhile this lockdown restricted the spread of the disease, in the absence of effective support, it can generate severe food and nutrition insecurity for daily wage-based workers,â says Khondoker Mottaleb, an agricultural economist based at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT).
Of the 61 million people who make up Bangladeshâs employed labor force, nearly 35% are paid daily. In a new study published in PLOS ONE, Mottaleb examines the food security and welfare impacts of the lockdowns on these daily-wage workers â in both farm and non-farm sectors â who are comparatively more resource-poor in terms of land ownership and education, and therefore likely to be hit hardest by a loss in earnings.
Using information from 50,000 economically active workers in Bangladesh, collected by the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS), the study quantifies the economic losses from the COVID-19 lockdowns based on daily-wage workersâ lost earnings and estimates the minimum compensation packages needed to ensure their minimum food security during the lockdown period.
Using the estimated daily wage earnings, the authors estimate that a one-day, complete lockdown generates an economic loss equivalent to $64.2 million. After assessing the daily per capita food expenditure for farm and non-farm households, the study estimates the need for a minimum compensation package of around $1 per day per household to ensure minimum food security for the daily wage-based worker households.
In May 2020, the Government of Bangladesh announced the provision of approximately $24 per month to two million households, half of whom will receive additional food provision. While this amount is in line with Mottalebâs findings, he stresses than this minimum support package is only suitable for the short-term, and that in the event of a prolonged lockdown period it will be necessary to consider additional support for other household costs such as clothing, medicine and education.
âWithout effective support programs, the implementation of a strict lockdown for a long time may be very difficult, if poor households are forced to come out to search for work, money and food,â explains Mottaleb. âIn the event of a very strict lockdown scenario, the government should consider issuing movement passes to persons and carriers of agricultural input and output to support smallholder agriculture, wage workers and agricultural value chains.â
The study identified two key explanations for the oversight. The first is that many cereal crops with varying nutritional qualities are indiscriminately grouped under the broad category of âstaples.â
A second problem lies in the fact that cereals are usually considered to be a major source of dietary energy alone. However, reducing nutritional attributes to macro- and micro-nutrients misses other beneficial elements of cereals known as âbioactive food components.â These include carotenoids, flavonoids, and polyphenols, and compounds that comprise dietary fiber.
âMost whole grain cereals provide differing amounts of proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins, in addition to being important sources of dietary energy,â said Jason Donovan, a senior economist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and co-author of the paper published in Food Policy.
âOnly relative to other ânutrient-richâ foodstuffs can cereals be described as ânutrient-poorâ.â
In the paper, entitled Agri-nutrition research: Revisiting the contribution of maize and wheat to human nutrition and health, the authors called on researchers and policymakers to embrace the multiple dietary components of cereals in addressing under- and over-nutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and the growing global problem of non-communicable diseases.
âThrough increasing the availability of, and access to, healthy foods derived from cereals, we can better address the growing triple burden of malnutrition that many countries are facing,â said Olaf Erenstein, co-author and director of CIMMYTâs Socioeconomics program.
âTo feed the world within planetary boundaries, current intakes of whole grain foods should more than double and address tricky issues like the current over-processing, to make the most of the nutrition potential of maize and wheat.â
While some carbohydrates can create a glycemic response that has negative effects on diabetes and obesity, dietary fiber in cereals comprises carbohydrates that are fermented in the large intestine with largely positive metabolic and health effects.
In addition, the naturally-occurring compounds found in maize and wheat can be enhanced through conventional breeding, genomic selection and bio- and industrial-fortification to offer enriched levels of beneficial components.
For example, scientists at CIMMYT have worked on new maize and wheat varieties with additional levels of vitamin A and zinc to help address some of the nutritional deficiencies found worldwide. Researchers are also improving how cereals are produced, processed, and stored to increase productivity and improve food safety while maintaining their nutritional benefits.
One of challenges in maximizing the nutritional benefit of cereal-based foods in diets is that the processing of grains often causes substantial losses of essential vitamins and minerals. Meanwhile, manufacturing industries create ultra-processed foods that often contain noxious qualities and components, which contribute directly to the significant and increasing global health and economic costs of non-communicable diseases.
âIf we are to end hunger by delivering healthy, diverse and nutritional diets in the next decade, we need a broader and more nuanced understanding of the nutritional and health-promoting value of diverse foods, including cereals,â added Nigel Poole, co-author and Professor of International Development at SOAS University, London.
âCereals and so-called ânutrient-richâ foods are complementary in agri-nutrition, both of which require additional research, resources and attention so that one does not replace the other.â
The International Maize and What Improvement Center (CIMMYT) is the global leader in publicly-funded maize and wheat research and related farming systems. Headquartered near Mexico City, CIMMYT works with hundreds of partners throughout the developing world to sustainably increase the productivity of maize and wheat cropping systems, thus improving global food security and reducing poverty. CIMMYT is a member of the CGIAR System and leads the CGIAR programs on Maize and Wheat and the Excellence in Breeding Platform. The Center receives support from national governments, foundations, development banks and other public and private agencies. For more information visit staging.cimmyt.org
Sub-Saharan Africa is undergoing important transformations, including climate change, population growth, urbanization and migration flows, and growth in digital technologies. What can we say about the likely development trajectories that African rural economies are on, and the implications for poor farming households? These are central questions for Jordan Chamberlin, an economist at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Kenya.
Chamberlinâs desk is covered with screens teeming with numbers, complex mathematical equations, lines of code and aerial views of African landscapes. He combines traditional microeconomic analysis with geospatial modelling skills to study some of the ways in which rural transformations are occurring. In this era of big data, he examines the wealth of spatial and socioeconomic datasets to explore the relationships between drivers of change and smallholder welfare, sometimes revealing surprising insights on how rural communities in Africa are evolving.
âAre commercial farms good or bad for neighboring smallholder farmers? Which households can benefit from the rapidly evolving rural land markets in Africa? What drives migration between rural areas? These are some examples of the complex but increasingly important questions that inform how we understand the evolution of agri-food systems in developing countries,â Chamberlin explains. âFortunately, we also increasingly have access to new data that helps us explore these issues.â
In addition to household survey datasets â the bread and butter of applied social scientists â todayâs researchers are also able to draw on an ever-expanding set of geospatial data that helps us to better contextualize the decisions smallholder farmers make.
He cites current work, which seeks to understand input adoption behaviors through better measurement of the biophysical and marketing contexts in which small farms operate. âEvidence suggests that low use rates of inorganic fertilizer by smallholders is due in part to poor expected returns on such investments,â he explains, âwhich are the result of site-specific agronomic responses, rainfall uncertainty, variation in input-output price ratios, and other factors.â
We are increasingly able to control for such factors explicitly: one of Chamberlinâs recent papers shows the importance of soil organic carbon for location-specific economic returns to fertilizer investments in Tanzania. âAfter all, farmers do not care about yields for yieldsâ sake â they make agronomic investments on the basis of how those investments affect their economic welfare.â
Better data and models may help to explain why farmers sometimes do not adopt technologies that we generally think of as profitable. A related strand of his research seeks to better model the spatial distribution of rural market prices.
Jordan Chamberlin (left) talks to a farmer in Ethiopiaâs Tigray region in 2019, while conducting research on youth outmigration from rural areas. (Photo: Jordan Chamberlin)
A spatial economistâs journey on Earth
Ever since his experience as a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay, where he worked as a beekeeping specialist, Chamberlin knew he wanted to spend his professional life working with smallholder farmers. He wanted to better understand how rural development takes place, and how policies and investments can help rural households to improve their welfare.
In pursuit of these interests, his academic journey took him from anthropology to quantitative geography, before leading him to agricultural economics. âWhile my fundamental interest in rural development has not changed, the analytical tools I have preferred have evolved over the years, and my training reflects that evolution,â he says.
Along with his research interests, he has always been passionate about working with institutions within the countries where his research has focused. While working with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Ethiopia, he helped establish a policy-oriented GIS lab at the Ethiopian Development Research Institute (EDRI). Years later, as part of his work with Michigan State University, he served as director of capacity building at the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI), a not-for-profit Zambian research organization. He continues to serve as an external advisor on PhD committees, and considers mentorship a key part of his professional commitments.
He joined CIMMYT at the Ethiopia office in 2015 as spatial economist, part of the foresight and ex ante group of the Socioeconomics program.
As part of his research portfolio, he explores the role of new technologies, data sources and extension methods in the scaling of production technologies. Under the Taking Maize Agronomy to Scale in Africa (TAMASA) project, one area he has been working on is how we may better design location-specific agronomic advisory tools. Working with the Nutrient Expert tool, developed by the African Plant Nutrition Institute (APNI), he and his research team have conducted randomized control trials in Ethiopia and Nigeria to evaluate the impacts of such decision-support tools on farmer investments and productivity outcomes. They found that such tools appear to contribute to productivity gains, although tool design matters â for example, Nigerian farmers were more likely to take up site-specific agronomic recommendations when such information was accompanied by information about uncertainty of financial returns.
Jordan Chamberlin (center) talks to colleagues during a staff gathering in Nairobi. (Photo. Joshua Masinde/CIMMYT)
Creative rethinking
While Chamberlinâs research portfolio is diverse, one commonality is the drive to use new data and tools to better guide how development resources are allocated.
âGiven the scarcity of resources available to governments and their partners, it is important to have sound empirical foundations for the allocation of these resources. Within CIMMYT, I see my role as part of a multidisciplinary team whose goal is to generate such empirical guidance,â he says.
This research also contributes to better design of agricultural development policies.
âEven though many of the research topics that my team addresses are not traditional areas of emphasis within CIMMYTâs socioeconomic work, I hope that we are demonstrating the value of broad thinking about development questions, which are of fundamental importance to one of our core constituencies: the small farmers of the regionâs maize and wheat-based farming systems.â
Ensuring the access of small-scale farmers to products and potential benefits from genetic engineering (GE) technologies for agriculture will require concerted investment and research by public institutions worldwide and particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
This was a key conclusion of a new review paper describing cutting-edge GE applications that offer exciting options to enhance the disease and pest resistance of important food crops and the ecological sustainability of cropping systems.
The technologies include gene editing (site-specific changes to DNA in a genome), gene drives (greatly enhancing or reducing frequency of genes that affect insect or pathogen reproduction), and synthetic biology (re-design or construction of biological devices, for example chromosomes or organelles).
Authored by international experts in policy, socioeconomics, and biological science, the new paper outlines potential uses of the technologies, particularly to address problems that affect resource-poor farmers or consumers, such as the viruses that attack cassava, the Striga weed that is a parasite of maize, or the fungal pathogen of groundnut that produces deadly toxins.
A weak capacity for research and development in many countries, combined with a small and declining public investment, raises questions about those nationsâ ability to develop and deliver high-quality GE technologies or realize their benefits.
âThe concern is that farmers not served by leading companies, who are developing the technologies, will be unable to obtain new, resistant crop varieties or other products of these technologies,â said Kevin Pixley, director of the genetic resources program of the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) and first author of the new paper.
The technologies have already proven effective for controlling bacterial, fungal, and viral plant pathogens, as well as insects that transmit them. For example, GE approaches to control cassava brown streak disease and cassava bacterial blightâfor which there are few or no known sources of resistance in cassava itselfâappear on track to produce resistant versions of cassava.
Future gene drive technologies that can be kept within specific areas and reversed if needed may offer ways to control insects that carry plant diseases or weeds that damage crops, and synthetic biology could someday create plants that are immune to invading viruses.
Institutional forces (arrows) alter the balance of public vs private research / development investments and the relative emphasis on low vs high value crops, factors that help determine who benefits (resource-poor vs wealthy farmers?) from the application of advanced technologies in crop breeding. (Figure: Nancy Valtierra/CIMMYT)
Many countries are still deciding whether and how they will regulate new GE products. The new paper explains how key factors including the cost and complexity of complying with biosafety regulations will shape the potential distribution of the technologies and products, determining which institutions undertake the related research and, as a result, which traits and crops are studied.
Civil society concerns regarding GE technologies and how or by whom they are deployed add important considerations to the complex questions surrounding the use of GE products.
âRealizing the potential of GE crops will require investments and policies for research, intellectual property regimes, and regulatory frameworks,â say the authors, âand societies must also address legitimate concerns about their responsible stewardship, agroecological sustainability, and equitable access to associated benefits.â
An open-access version of the full paper is available online: https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-phyto-080417-045954
Pixley, K.V., J.B. Falck-Zepeda, K.E. Giller, L.L. Glenna, F. Gould, C.A. Mallory-Smith, D.M. Stelly, and C.N. Stewart. 2019. Genome editing, gene drives, and synthetic biology: Will they contribute to disease-resistant crops, and who will benefit? Annu. Rev. Phytopathol 57:8.1â8.24.
